Sunday, May 15, 2011

My 1st quarter haul

I often get questions about the legitimacy of various "make money online" programs. Many of them seem like scams (and I'm sure that some of them are), but I'd like to share a couple with you that I have found to be reputable, profitable, and requiring little effort. The money I earn from these will never pay the bills or anything, but every little bit certainly helps!

Swagbucks - I earned $75 in Amazon.com gift cards from 1/1-3/31

Earn free gift cards! Swagbucks.com is an online portal dedicated to helping you earn digital dollars called "Swag Bucks", which can be redeemed for gift cards. Really, you earn points just for searching. When I am going anywhere online, I try to utilize the Swagbucks toolbar to go to that location – even if it is Facebook or my own blog.

With the concept Search, Earn, Redeem – it really doesn’t cost you anything extra to get free stuff while searching the web (you were doing that anyways). Other ways you can earn Swagbucks include answering their Daily Poll, using their Tool bar, filling out surveys, searching for codes, watching videos, redeeming coupons at the grocery store, and referring your friends.

If your friends join, Swagbucks will give you all of the bucks that they earn from searching the web (up to a 1,000 SB maximum). Some perspective: each Amazon.com gift card costs 450 SB, so this is like earning more than $10 per friend who participates! Disclosure: I will benefit if you join through any of my links here. If you'd rather not join through me you can just go to Swagbucks.com to get started.

Since I joined Swagbucks at the beginning of October, 2010 I have earned $250 in Amazon.com gift cards, and $80 in Target.com gift cards. We bought everything that was still on our Amazon registry after my shower with these gift cards!

After signing up, visit the eBates website before making an online purchase (instead of going straight to the retailer's website). From the eBates site, just click to go to the retailer you want to shop from, and voila, you'll get 2-5% (or more) back! Easy! You'll also get a $5 bonus when you make your first purchase through the website. I joined at the beginning of December and have gotten back $112 already. Wow...that means I do way too much online shopping!

If you have friends who would be interested in eBates, send them an invitation. If they make an online purchase through eBates, you'll get a $5 bonus! Disclosure: I will benefit if you join through any of my links here. If you'd rather not join through me you can just go to eBates.com to get started.

Do you know of any other programs through which you can make money or gift cards with little effort? Please share if you do!

If you have student loans, Upromise is pretty awesome. I have mine linked directly to my loan and it pays onto it every quarter. So far, in the year or so I've had it it's paid about $175 onto my loan. It's not going to pay it off, but it helps! And my mom and husband have it, too, and it's all linked to my loan. So I've been getting more each quarter.